Tokyo summit urges more support for Africa

Asian-African cooperation in implementation of NEPAD

By Ernest Harsch, Tokyo

Japan and other Asian countries reaffirmed their backing for Africa's own initiatives for development and peace at the close of a three-day summit meeting in Tokyo of leaders from the two continents. "We . . . pledge to support Africa's ownership," especially in implementation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the delegates stated in their final declaration.

The Third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III), held 29 September - 1 October, was the largest by far since the first such meeting 10 years ago. It drew more than 1,000 participants, including 23 African heads of state or government, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and delegates from 89 countries and 47 regional and international organizations.

The summit, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message delivered on his behalf by Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari, "continues Japan's remarkable record of solidarity and support for Africa and provides a forum for deepening Asian-African cooperation." In addition to the government of Japan, the World Bank and the Global Coalition for Africa, TICAD III was co-organized by the UN's Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (headed by Mr. Gambari) and the UN Development Programme.

The decade-long TICAD process "has proven to be an excellent framework for the promotion of partnership towards Africa's sustainable development," said Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano, speaking as the current chairman of the African Union. He noted that TICAD's principles of African ownership and international partnership fall "well within the spirit" of NEPAD.

Asian pledges

Mr. Chissano also emphasized the importance of Asian cooperation with Africa and encouraged deeper involvement in NEPAD's implementation by a wide range of Asian countries. One plenary session focused on that issue, and featured pledges by Malaysia, China, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand to promote more technical assistance, trade and investment in Africa.

Photo : ©Vincent Fournier

As the richest and most industrialized Asian nation, Japan will continue to play a pivotal role in such cooperation, Prime Minister Koizumi said in his keynote address. Since the TICAD process began a decade earlier, he reported, Japan has provided $12 bn in aid to Africa, trained more than 10,000 Africans in Japan and sent more than 7,000 Japanese experts to Africa. In addition to other forms of assistance, he said, Japan will provide $1 bn in grants over the next five years for programmes in education, water, food assistance and health, including measures against HIV/AIDS.

Japan's assistance to Africa will rest on "three pillars," the prime minister stressed - human-centred development, poverty reduction through economic growth and the consolidation of peace - all of which correspond to NEPAD's priorities. "Japan sincerely respects the will of Africans themselves to make the 21st century the African century," he said.

International challenges

When African leaders took the floor, they invariably reaffirmed their own commitment to take primary responsibility for overcoming poverty, low levels of agricultural and industrial development and political insecurity and social strife. But they also pointed to the need for a more supportive international environment.

In this respect, noted Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Japan was one of the first developed countries to recognize "the risk of marginalization of Africa" when the Cold War ended at the start of the 1990s. In response, he observed, Japan called the first TICAD conference in 1993 to help draw international attention to Africa's needs. "While there have been renewed commitments to Africa's development over the past few years, this is not the time for us to relax our efforts to put Africa's development at the centre of the global agenda for peace and development."

Mr. Gambari, the UN special adviser on Africa, said that such efforts to keep Africa on the world's agenda are particularly important now, as "the international community is focusing its attention on Iraq, the Middle East and the war against terrorism, especially after September 11" (the 2001 attacks in the US).

While appreciating the ongoing efforts by Japan and other Asian countries to support Africa, many African participants also expressed a desire that more be done, not only in the delivery of aid and debt relief, but also towards the promotion of greater investment and trade, including greater access to developed country markets for African exports.

The collapse of the World Trade Organization talks in Cancún, Mexico, just a few weeks earlier came up repeatedly in the Tokyo discussions. A number of African leaders noted that the persistence of domestic farm subsidies in the developed countries tends to drive down world prices for African agricultural exports, undercutting efforts to increase African rural incomes.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni observed that the benefits of the aid that his country has received from Western countries and Japan have been "wiped out several times over by the inequitable trade arrangements." African countries have been seeking to expand exports and reduce their dependence on aid, Mr. Museveni pointed out. But "the greatest subversion to Africa's development has been accounted for by the protectionism in the EU, USA, Canada and Japan."

The final conference declaration, marking TICAD's tenth anniversary, acknowledged this concern. In addition to calling for more aid and investment in Africa, it stressed the promotion of "market access and fair trade in order to support the efforts of African countries to gain a meaningful foothold in the global market place."

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